How To Save $750 in Less Than An Hour

Happy Wednesday, my friends! I’m gonna be real with you guys for a minute. I’m not sure I will catch up on blogging. The past couple of weeks, we’ve launched into full fundraising mode and we’re still trying to finish our kitchen in the free time we have. Throw hosting a baby shower in there, too, and I’m sure you can imagine the craziness lately.

But in the midst of all this craziness, you know what helps? Saving money! Especially after we’ve blown our kitchen budget out of the water. It stresses me out y’all, because if you know me and Cory, you know that we try and follow the Dave Ramsey financial freedom program.

I do have a little confession though, part of the kitchen renovation isn’t paid for debt-free. But before any stones are thrown, it was not an impulse decision. We prayed about it long and hard and decided it was in our best interest to stay in our house {possibly forever} and go ahead and make the updates it needed.

And then my computer crashed. That’s always how it goes, right?

We get it, universe. We get it.

For the most part and especially when we are in debt paying mode, Cory and I enjoy the challenge of living as frugally as possible but in reality, we’ve never really lived frugally. After what I saw in Rwanda, we are spoiled. But when we first started our journey to financial freedom, we were spending a ridiculous amount of money. So much so, that when we cut back, I still wouldn’t call it frugal.

Up until this last year when Cory accepted a new position at work {less overtime = less money but a happier husband}, we didn’t know what it meant to really have to cut back on our spending even though we had been budgeting and tracking our expenses for the past two years.

As you might can imagine, I was disgusted when I discovered our homeowners’ insurance had almost doubled due to an audit that caught a discount we weren’t ever supposed to have. Last summer! {it was a busy summer} When I got a statement from our mortgage company a few weeks ago saying that our escrow payment would be going up by almost $100/month to make up for the increase in our insurance, I may have slightly panicked.

We have a kitchen to pay for! We can’t pay another $100 a month for home insurance.

That’s how my frugal brain works.

Immediately, I called our favorite insurance agent and he was on it! Mission: find Paige and Cory a reasonable insurance rate. And boy, did he ever!

In just a few hours, he had us a quote that bundled our home and car insurance and the savings were big!

Like $750 a year, big!

The best part? All we had to do was make the initial phone call, then go in and sign the papers! Easy, right???

Since $750 a year is such a huge savings, I thought I would share a few pointers with you guys on how you can save big too.

How to Save Big on Home and Car Insurance:

Use an independent agent. 

This is probably the biggest factor that helped us save so much. Our insurance agent isn’t tied to just one insurance company. He has the ability to search for the lowest price, saving us the time of calling around ourselves.

Bundle, Bundle, Bundle.

The discount that we lost {but were never suppose to have} with our old insurance company was bundling our home and car insurance. When we first bought our home five years ago, they must have given us this discount by mistake. This was almost a $600 discount! Now, our home and cars are both insured by the same company AND we received a lower rate for both policies. #winning

Ask about any additional discounts. 

Cory and I both graduated from college and our insurance company gives a discount for that. Also, the higher degree of education we receive, the bigger the discount! There are so many different discounts, so make sure your agent checks into them.

Pay yearly. 

Most insurance companies charge extra fees to pay monthly. Paying yearly will eliminate those fees and put more money in your pocket. If you budget (which you should!) set aside money each month so it’s not a burden when payment time rolls around.

Participate in a rewind program. 

Last summer, my sweet boy rolled through a stop sign. Oops! It was late, we were getting ready for a fundraiser, and sometimes stuff like that happens. Except this was a four points off his license “oops” and I knew our car insurance was going to skyrocket. Well, it did! With our new policy, our agent asked if Cory would be interested in participating in a rewind program in which he has a device that monitors his driving for four months and in return, wipes the ticket off his insurance record. While Cory does feel like it’s a little “Big Brother”, he agreed in order to save us some money. And I’ve threatened him with his life if he doesn’t pass at the end of four months!

Pick up the phone and call! 

I’ve never been the type to see a change like my insurance rate doubling and just assume it’s correct. I will always pick up the phone and find out what’s going on. Once I knew, we spent just a few minutes explaining to our insurance agent what was going on and he got right on finding us a better rate. Don’t be afraid to call and ask. You could be overpaying too!

I know this seems almost too easy but it really is a quick and easy way to cut back on your spending. $750 a year could be used for so many different things like paying for a vacation or put aside for a rainy day. For us? It’ll go towards paying off the renovations!

How would you spend an extra $750 a year?